Axe-attacker jailed for nine years

Sick axe-attacker jailed for nine years

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Fuelled by a cocktail of prescribed and illicit drugs, Evie Amati tried to kill three innocent victims with an axe inside a Sydney 7-Eleven.

She hit two of them with such force on January 7, 2017, that she sliced through her first victim Ben Rimmer’s face and bone before splitting the base of Sharon Hacker’s skull into multiple parts.

Her last victim, pedestrian Shane Redwood, deflected the attacks with his backpack outside the Enmore store until it was knocked from his grasp and he ran.

Judge Mark Williams sentenced the now 26-year-old to nine years’ jail with a non-parole period of four and a half years at Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court on Friday.

Camera IconFuelled by a cocktail of prescribed and illicit drugs, Evie Amati tried to kill three innocent victims with an axe.Picture: 7 News

“The likelihood of death in each case was very high,” the judge told the court.

He described the CCTV footage of the incident as “’graphic and shocking”.

“Both Mr Rimmer and Ms Hacker were struck when they were not looking, rendering them more vulnerable to serious harm,” the judge said.

Ms Hacker said she still experiences “shooting pain” through her arm.

The judge said, as Mr Rimmer lay on the ground following the attack, he thought of his pregnant wife who he feared he may never see again.

Judge Williams detailed the events leading up to the attack, including Amati going on a Tinder date, drinking alcohol, smoking cannabis and consuming illicit drug MDA.

Camera IconFuelled by a cocktail of prescribed and illicit drugs, Evie Amati tried to kill three innocent victims with an axe.Picture: 7 News

She became upset after comments from her date’s housemate about how she was “brave” identifying as transgender.

After leaving, Amati later messaged her date: “One day I’m going to kill a lot of people... For hating something so innocent”.

Half an hour after they stopped messaging, Amati armed herself with the axe and an 18cm knife before heading to the 7-Eleven.

The court heard a doctor believes Amati was “intoxicated with a cocktail of prescribed and illicit substances at the time of the offending and she had a brief drug-induced psychosis on top of her depressive illness”.

Her barrister Charles Waterstreet told the court about the deterioration of her life after gender reassignment surgery in Thailand due to issues with incorrectly prescribed feminising hormones which aggravated her depression.

However, the defence of mental illness was previously rejected by a jury.

Last year she was found guilty of three charges — wounding with intent to murder, attempting to wound with intent to murder, and inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent to murder.